Language House directors, Catherine Jones and Diana Ranson, organized a series of talks with the theme "Stories of Language Communities" with funds obtained by Noel Fallows.  They invited six well known scholars in French and Spanish to speak in the community room of Mary Lyndon on six dates during Spring 2001 Semester.

Speaking on the topic, "The Story of French," were Julie Auger, Assistant Professor of French and Linguistics at Indiana University, who delivered a lecture on the morphological and lexical particularities of québécois speech;  Rupert Pickens, Professor of French and Chair of the Department of French at the University of Kentucky, who discussed the presence of French language and culture in medieval Britain; and William Calin, Graduate Research Professor of French at the University of Florida, who demonstrated the value of modern theoretical approaches in the analysis of French literary texts of the Middle Ages.

"The Story of Spanish" included talks by John Lipski, Professor of Spanish and Head at Pennsylvania State University, who delivered a lecture on the Spanish origins of Latin American Spanish, especially of the Caribbean; Carmen Silva-Corvalán, Professor of Spanish and Linguistics and Head, University of Southern California, who presented a historical and sociolinguistic overview of Spanish in the Southwestern United States, with specific examples from Los Angeles; and Roger Wright, Professor of Spanish, University of Liverpool, who discussed the various problems inherent in dating the origins of the Romance languages.

The series was made possible by funds provided by the Center for Humanities and Arts, the Center for Caribbean and Latin American Studies, the Office of the Dean of the Franklin College of Arts and Sciences, the Department of Romance Languages, the Office of the President, and the Office of the Vice President for Instruction, all of the University of Georgia.